*The Next Dead Girl*

All Tish Lewis knew was that it was dark. And cold. How long had she been in this place? And where exactly WAS she? She had long since stopped screaming. No one had come in response to her screams. Why? Why was she being held? Ransom? That's what she thought at first. Someone had kidnapped her and was demanding money from her father. But that was before she began to her the chanting through the door. The terrible singing. That was before she heard the scream. It was a girl's scream. She knew that. And she thought she knew who the girl was, too. Her roommate, Joelle. Tish began to cry again. She was starting to lose hope that she'd ever get out of this room alive. what worried her most was HOW her death would come, not if. They had taken her for a reason---they'd taken Joelle, too, and Tish was certain it was Joelle's scream of death that she had heard. They'd taken both girls to kill them. But who "they" were and why they wanted to kill them was unknown. And it was the unknown that Tish feared most...

*Chapter One*

The white Lexus was doing exactly one mile over the speed limit when it crossed the Louisiana state line.
It had started to rain just outside of Jackson, Mississippi---a steady downpour the wipers simply couldn't keep down to a crawl as she passed through the city.
Sue's shoulders tensed as she watched the red taillights of the Jeep Cherokee in front of her. She had been driving almost nonstop for nearly two days now. The other girls on campus had been thinking about holiday breaks. But Sue's mind had been on one thing and one thing only. Getting away. There had been no other choice.
She snapped on the radio, trying to relieve the tedium of the drive and the steady, pounding rain. "Have yourself a merry little Christmas," a voice sang from the radio. "Let your heart be light..."
Christmas. It was almost Christmas. It didn't feel that way to Sue, with the warm, muggy rain.
"From now on, our troubles will be out of sight..."
She was crying. She switched off the radio. She preferred the silence. Sue glanced back in her rearview mirror. She wasn't sure who---or what---she was looking for. In the rain, she couldn't see anything but headlights anyway. But somehow it made her feel better to look back every now and then. Her nerves, already shot, began to fray a little as she kept taking her foot off the gas pedal to avoid slamming into the car in front of her.
"Come on, come on," Sue muttered under her breath, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. The wind and rain whipped against the side of the car with a long, screeching howl. It seemed to take hours to get through Jackson, but once she did, the thick traffic began to disperse. Finally, she was able to start getting her speed back up. As soon as she clocked seventy-one, she clicked on the cruise control and removed her foot from the gas pedal with a sigh of relief. Her right hip was getting sore, and she shifted a little in her seat. Cars and trucks flew past her in the left lane, throwing up streams of water onto her windshield. No matter how tempting it was to speed up, she resisted the urge and kept relying on the cruise control. She couldn't risk being pulled over. It was just paranoia, she knew. Surely, there was no rural Southern sheriff watching for her. In all likelihood, there wasn't anyone at all on the road looking for her. But better safe than sorry.
I just don't know, Sue reminded herself, and until I do know, it's better not to take any risks---and not to trust anyone. If I try to tell anyone---they'll just think I'm crazy, and they'll turn me over to Gran and Granpa. I can't risk that.
A sob rose in her throat, but Sue fought it down. Don't cry again, that's a waste of energy. I have to focus. I have to keep my mind clear and not give in to emotion. I'm almost there. It's only a few more hours at most, and then I can take a break, get some rest, and maybe find some hope...
But for how long could she afford to rest? Sooner or later, she knew, they'd come for her. They wouldn't just let her get away.
She still had over five hundred dollars in cash in her purse, but there was no telling how long that would last. She was afraid to use her credit cards and her debit card. She'd paid cash at that horrible cheap motel just outside of Richmond, Virgina, where she'd grabbed a few hours of desperately needed sleep before hitting the road again. She couldn't leave any electronic traces behind---that would make it too easy for them to find her. She'd left her cell phone back at her dorm room in the upstate New York, buying a cheap disposable pay-as-you-go one at Wal-Mart somewhere in the northern Pennsylvania as she headed south. She's worried about her license scription of her and her car---but if it came down to it, there was a gun in the compartment between the seats. She wasn't sure if she would actually have the nerve to use it, but it was there in case she needed it.